By William Ernest Waites

Marketing research is one of the most valuable tools

available to business. Yet, too often, smaller companies misuse it, resulting

in misdirection and missed opportunities.

Let’s assume that you would like to know who your customers

are and why they are doing business with you instead of your competitors. The

first step is to do an audit of what you really know now, what you think you

know and what you want to know.

Make a list of questions. Then develop a questionnaire that

will get the information you want. Notice I didn’t say, “get the answers” you

want. If your research is designed merely to confirm your pre-formed opinions

it is worse than a waste of money. It actually can support shaky marketing

practices that blind you to other opportunities.

What research options are open to you? There are three

fundamental research techniques. The first, easiest and least expensive

technique is secondary research. There is a wealth of information available

from third-party sources such as the Census Bureau, the state, county and

municipal economic development staffs, and other governmental archives. Your

tax money pays to collect this information.

One example of the kind of material that is available is

research conducted by the Lee Island Coast Visitor & Convention Bureau.

Each month they collect data on Lee County visitors, where they come from and

why they come to Lee County. Tapping into just one aspect of this information

for its client Royal Shell Vacations, Spiro & Waites Advertising, Marketing

& Public Relations was able to dramatically improve booking efficiency

simply by changing media and adjusting the message. Randy Bacik, owner of Royal

Shell Vacations, indicated, “We never could have afforded to conduct this

research on our own. We would have just kept spending money in the wrong

places.”

The second basic technique is original quantitative

research. This is what happens when you put together a formal questionnaire and

ask many people individually for their answers. Quantitative research has the

highest validity and reliability factors, if the number of respondents is large

enough to be projectable. For national projections, at least 1,000 respondents

are a minimum according to Andrew Evans, the senior project director in the

Fort Myers office of the New York research firm, Schulman Ronca &

Bucuvalas. As the size of the total universe declines, the size of the sample

also can be smaller. For local projects, I have used samples as small as 200.

The danger of a smaller sample is that it may be influenced by aberrations that

are not proportionately represented in the total universe.

Quantitative studies can be done by mail, telephone or what

is known as mall intercept. The mail survey is the easiest and least expensive

of these. It requires, however, a questionnaire that does not allow the

respondent to read ahead and get some feeling for what he or she thinks the

researcher wants to hear. Otherwise, they often will respond in a way that

taints the entire result. Therefore it is more satisfactory for behavior

questions, rather than opinion questions.

We’re all familiar with telephone surveys, and why they can

be expensive. People don’t like to be bothered by the telephone at home. They have

many strategies to avoid responding. As a result, many numbers have to be

dialed for each response. A phone survey done on behalf of the Alliance for the

Arts two years ago zeroed in on community awareness of the Alliance and its

activities. It was short and sweet, but provided the Alliance with information

that helped them make their communications program more effective. Executive

Director Karl Hollander commented, “The study even revealed new activities that

fit our mission and that we easily could add to our menu of services.”

Perhaps the most commonly used and abused research technique

is focus groups. Because they are relatively inexpensive and can be conducted

anywhere 10 or 12 people can meet in a room; they often are the technique of

first resort. They can be dangerous, however. An inexperienced moderator can

let the discussion get off topic or lead the group to predetermined

conclusions. One or two strong personalities can dominate the discussion

leading to the suppression of individual feelings and distortion of group

conclusions. At best, focus groups provide indicators and ideas and can be used

to identify “red flag” issues. They are considered qualitative research because

they can’t be projected statistically.

It always makes sense to observe the group if at all

possible. A video camera gives you the opportunity to read body language. Some

companies that specialize in focus groups have their own research facilities

with two-way mirrors that separate the focus group from the observers.

There are risks here too, however. Many years ago, a focus

group was being conducted for a major wine-maker with a notoriously passionate

CEO. He was in the observation room when one of the group members began to

criticize his product. He became so incensed that he bolted from the

observation room, burst into the focus group room and began to throttle the

person. That pretty much put an end to the discussion.

William Ernest Waites is the former chairman and co-creative

director of Spiro & Waites Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. In

a previous life, he held senior creative and management positions with Young

& Rubicam and Ogilvy & Mather.